My adventures in the kitchen and other things

I made these last week for supper for two using the left over lamb from the first recipe in this series. It’s a simpler version of a pizza. Instead of laboring over pizza dough to create the base, you use store bought flatbread such as lavash. Top it with anything that suits your mood. Give it a whirl in the oven and serve it piping hot.

On a few odd occasions, I find I have to rustle up a quick lunch or dinner just for myself. Now here’s a confession – I do not enjoy cooking for myself as much as I do for others. So, often a stretch of imagination is necessary to avoid me from falling for the usual take away suspects! I thought I’d share some of my recent inventions when it comes to easy and quick meals. These can be modified to leave out anything you don’t have right at the moment in the kitchen and to include any other odd bits and pieces of vegetables, meat, etc that maybe lying around. It’s just a way of me trying to inspire you to open that refrigerator door and use anything in there that catches your fancy.

The first dish in this series is for a warming plate of rice made with harissa and tomato paste along with scrumptious meatballs topped off with creamy yoghurt and tart sumac.

There is something deeply comforting in cooking a big batch of slowly braised meat. I’ve always wanted to make a slow roasted pork shoulder ever since coming across a recipe for this in my first ever proper cookbook – Jamie Oliver’s ‘Cook with Jamie.’ I never got to do it though since I never could find the proper cut of meat for it in Dublin. I did, however, slow roast a monster of a pork shoulder once during our time in France and knew it would be a winner whenever I tried it next.

We love Asian food in all its guises – diverse Indian dishes and subtly flavoured Chinese ones, the various kinds of nasi you get throughout south east Asia, the fusion cuisine of Malaysia…the list goes on. I have also always loved recreating these dishes in my own kitchen. Whenever an attempt at making a rendang or a nasi lemak turns out well, I am over joyed!

Indonesian cuisine is very dear to Peter’s heart (what with the Dutch connection to Indonesia) especially as he grew up in Holland. As a child, a visit to the local Chinese restaurant was a much anticipated event for him. These Chinese restaurants actually serve a combination of Chinese and Indonesian dishes, something that’s unique to them and cannot be easily found outside of the Netherlands.

I have always been intrigued by Mexican food. The same way that Indian food remains mysterious for many people just because it’s so diverse, I feel Mexican food is something that one can spend a lifetime studying. I consider myself lucky that we have the opportunity to try out different flavours of this colourful cuisine living in California. Of course, a lot of it is in no way a hundred percent authentic but if it gives me even a glimpse of what the real thing would be like, I am happy for now.